Christodorus a Greek epic poet from Coptos in Egypt

Egypt

Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...

, flourished during the reign of Anastasius I

Anastasius I (emperor)

Anastasius I was Byzantine Emperor from 491 to 518. During his reign the Roman eastern frontier underwent extensive re-fortification, including the construction of Dara, a stronghold intended to counter the Persian fortress of Nisibis....

 (491-518).

According to Suidas, he was the author of Patria (Gr. Πάτρια), accounts of the foundation, history and antiquities of various cities; Lydiaka (Gr. Λυδιακά), the mythical history of Lydia

Lydia

Lydia was an Iron Age kingdom of western Asia Minor located generally east of ancient Ionia in the modern Turkish provinces of Manisa and inland İzmir. Its population spoke an Anatolian language known as Lydian....

; Isaurica (Gr. Ἰσαυρικά), celebrating Anastasius' victory in the Isaurian War

Isaurian War

The Isaurian War was a conflict that lasted from 492 to 497 and that was fought between the army of the Eastern Roman Empire and the rebels of Isauria. At the end of the war, Eastern Emperor Anastasius I regained the control of the Isauria region and the leaders of the revolt were killed.-...

 (492-497); three books of epigram

Epigram

An epigram is a brief, interesting, usually memorable and sometimes surprising statement. Derived from the epigramma "inscription" from ἐπιγράφειν epigraphein "to write on inscribe", this literary device has been employed for over two millennia....

s; and many other works.

In addition to two epigrams (Anthol. Pal. vii. 697, 698) we possess a description of eighty statues of gods, heroes and famous men and women in the gymnasium of Zeuxippus

Baths of Zeuxippus

The Baths of Zeuxippus were popular public baths in the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. They were built between 100 to 200, destroyed by the Nika revolt of 532 and then rebuilt several years later. They were so called because they were built upon the site where a Temple...

 at Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 (Ἔκφρασις τῶν ἀγαλμάτων τῶν εἰς τὸ δημόσιον γυμνάσιον το ἐπικαλουμένον τοῦ Ζευξίππου). This text, consisting of 416 hexameter

Hexameter

Hexameter is a metrical line of verse consisting of six feet. It was the standard epic metre in classical Greek and Latin literature, such as in the Iliad and Aeneid. Its use in other genres of composition include Horace's satires, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. According to Greek mythology, hexameter...

s, forms the second book of the Palatine Anthology

Palatine Anthology

The Palatine Anthology is the collection of Greek poems and epigrams discovered in 1606 in the Palating Library in Heidelberg. It is based on the lost collection of Constantine Cephalas of the 10th century, which has been composed using older anthologies. It contains material from the 7th century...

.

The writer's chief models are Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

 and Nonnus

Nonnus

Nonnus of Panopolis , was a Greek epic poet. He was a native of Panopolis in the Egyptian Thebaid, and probably lived at the end of the 4th or early 5th century....

, whom he follows closely in the structure of his hexameters. Opinions are divided as to the merits of the work. Some critics regard it as of great importance for the history of art and a model of description; others consider it valueless, alike from the historical, mythological and archaeological points of view.

See Friedrich Baumgarten, De Christodoro Poeta Thebano, Bonn (1881), and his article in Pauly-Wissowa's Realencyclopädie der Classischen Altertumswissenschaft, III (1897) 2450-2452; Wilhelm von Christ

Wilhelm von Christ

Wilhelm von Christ , German classical scholar, was born in Geisenheim in Hesse-Nassau.From 1854 till 1860 he taught in the Maximiliansgymnasium at Munich, and in 1861 was appointed professor of classical philology in the university....

, Geschichte der griechischen Litteratur (1898); Francesco Tissoni, Cristodoro. Un’introduzione e un commento, Alessandria (2000).